I was looking at my wayward notes for this book nay essays and Brimfield, in America, and Newark in England gave me a thrill. It is difficult unless you are a collector to imagine the wonderful high that these two markets gave the two of us every time we heard their names. Still, years later all those memories rush in to take me to a cold February in England.
Although Andy has been with me at the flea market in Newark, England he has never been there in February. I don't think he'd like it, but I did. The Newark Fair is established as the premier international antiques and collectors fair in England. The excellent facilities, as well as Newark's central location, ensure the fair's great success. One can reach it by train, but the private bus that picked us up at the Barkston Hotel at 4:00a.m. and took us to Newark in time for early opening at 6:30a.m. was our go-to ride. There would be forty of us and it cost each of us only twenty English pounds. A bargain and a security blanket that ensured that our purchases and our cold tired bodies got back to the hotel in one piece.
The Newark and Nottinghamshire Showgrounds offers space for up to 4,000 stallholders occupying eight permanent buildings, 50 marquees and hundreds of outside pitches. (I give you this information now because this fair still exists but it is not nearly what it was in its heyday and that is when I shopped it with glee.) At the time I shopped it as many as 20,000 customers came to this glorious flea market which included leading buyers from all over the world and we Americans were in that category I should think. For additional information Goggle Newark, England antiques fair.
So picture a wrapped up woman looking like the Michelin man jumping out of a bus with a set of roller wheels on a foggy English morning heading for the buys with intense focus. Proof of that is sitting in my kitchen as I write.
It was the end of the day and the bus was leaving at 6:00. I was dead tired but this really large tent had its entrance flap back and the warm lighting lured me in. I looked to the left and there sat the most wonderful pine, very large, table with bottom racks that I had ever seen. At home, my kitchen was being re-done and I had to have this seven foot very heavy table. The merchant was happy to have, possibly, this last big sale because the table was 2,000 pounds. Very expensive and it was at the end of my shopping day, but I did have 2,000 pounds and I gave it to him without a receipt. I was frantic to get back to the bus and my shipper was back near the bus and I had to get to him first. It was like 'clear the way'. I was running and panting and dragging my bag on wheels and people actually did get out of my way. They were afraid of me. I got to the shipper and he said let's go back and let me look at the table so I TRIED to find the tent. You got it...I could not remember where the paid-for table lurked among the 4,000 stalls. We searched and searched and the bus waited and waited and the passengers were tired, cold, and hungry after marathon shopping for 12 hours. That's never a good scenario. Finally, the shipper said go on, get on the bus and I will find the table. Nothing else could be done so I left him and 2,000 pounds and trudged back to the bus. The collectors on board were actually gracious about the short delay because they knew how they would feel leaving something like that behind.
The next day, late in the day for some reason, the shipper called and said he had found the table and that he would 'dine out' on that American story for months. He was happy too because all of my purchases could be placed on the underside of that table and the entire table with my purchases could be plastic wrapped and travel safely to America which it did.
